From: "Jeff Wood", [EMAIL PROTECTED] Terry Pendrous wrote: What puzzles me about this gross stupidity by the MOD is as sure as god made little apples, some time in the near future they will need ranges again to train personnel for a conflict. The cock-up theory of history usually works more often than the conspiracy, but in this case the answer to Terry's question may be a mixture of the two. We could start with the knowledge that both world wars were not won by the regular forces. In fact they were nearly lost, respectively in 1914 and 1940. The wars were subsequently won by the civilians, in or out of uniform. Given this lesson of history, one would expect to find in this country a population routinely skilled in the use of small arms, the basic infantry weaponry. They would be backed up by a network of ranges, sympathetic firearms laws, and government support. I understand we once had this environment, along with a much healthier gun culture in which massacres did not take place, and criminals rarely resorted to firearms. My feeling is that two things happened though not at once. First, in the 1950s, governments chose bombs over men, because hydrogen bombs were cheaper and more biddable. The ability to end conscription by the 1960s probably made the decision more popular (at least until the Cuban missile crisis) and as a result, a whole generation missed military service and firearms training. Conscription was not replaced by a "militia" approach to defence in depth, and I have seen for myself how military men, with their access to weapons of mass destruction, easily sneer at the pretensions of civilian marksman with a sense of history. As a result, the military became separated from the civilian population, but not of course from the government machine. That partnership deepened, especially as the war in Northern Ireland developed, and that part of the machine we can call "Security" became active and more ambitious. I believe this was the start of the second cause of our problems. It is my opinion that the poison dripped into British society amounted to much more than terrorist bombs. Out of the feverish co-operation and competition among a pack of civilian and military security agencies was born a mindset which Joe Stalin would have been proud of. Given modern technology, the possibilities for surveillance and control of the civilian population are in fact far greater than those available to Uncle Joe . It so happened that in the 1980s we had a government and a Prime Minister more than ready to countenance this new security machine. "Enemies" such as the miners, CND, and real social enemies such as terrorists provided the excuse to turn the security machine on the mainland population. Some chief policemen enthusiastically joined in. In all this, the existence of a significant armed group of civilians must have stood out to the security planners, especially those in the Home Office. I fancy too that self loading riflemen, and handgunners, show up as more working-class than average, placing them firmly in the group of Enemies. This last point is as relevant to our present rulers as to the previous. Disarming civilians thus becomes a matter of state policy. Leaving them with nowhere to shoot is simply part of that process, so don't expect to see military ranges being sold off to civilians. Note too that there is no room under the regime I describe for target shooting as a defence against further bans and confiscation. When the time comes, a little shroud waving will take care of that pathetic plea, as we saw after Dunblane. No doubt the emergency Terry refers to will one day arise, not I think in my lifetime, and probably not in that of my grown-up son. However, I am not offering my grandson any written guarantees. Yours sincerely Jeff Wood -- Actually I was thinking about this the other day when someone asked me how many guns the police have. The police have some 5,000-10,000 guns for operational use, based on the fact that there are 7,200 AFOs and the majority are not routinely armed. Obviously they have some of our handguns and guns they've taken off criminals but I have no idea how many of them would be suitable for military use, and pistols are marginal anyway. Civilians have about 320,000 rifles, the vast bulk of which are .22s and once again, not up to much in terms of military use. There are only a few thousand Section 1 shotguns and your average double-barrel is totally outclassed by an assault rifle. By comparison, the military has 380,000 SA80s, 25,000 pistols, and tens of thousands of other firearms, plus hundreds of thousands of SLRs and so on in reserve stores. My thinking is that it wouldn't be very difficult to mount a military coup in this country if the military were minded to do it. They're always moaning about crap kit and crap pay and getting no respect and being over stretched by the Govt. and being sent to places they don't care about, etc. It would be pretty difficult to stop. I can just see that pratt George Robertson going: "Well, no-one expected this to happen in this day and age", like he did with the massacres in Kosovo. See how happy the Army is when they start putting women in infantry units. Steve. -------[Cybershooters contacts]-------- Editor: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website & subscription info: www.cybershooters.org
